


The First (and Last) Night of the Rest of Their Lives

by eag



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angels fallen and otherwise, Crowley's Flat (Good Omens), Crowley's Fridge (Good Omens), Cuddly Crowley, Date Night At Home, Demon, Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Food, Friendship, Gen, Humor, I didn't mean to add more tags, I mean the fridge, Is it miracles or magic, Love, Napping, Other, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing a Bed, Snake Aziraphale, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Snek Aziraphale, WARM AND SOFT, Wiggle Wiggle Snakey Snake, Wiggly Fun, a quick read, angel - Freeform, because that's an important detail and there's only one bed, body switching, but by all means we need a couple new ones for the bonus material, by the way did I mention there's only one bed, don't worry it's pretty short, excellent feels to words ratio, is the fridge miracles or magic, no plants were harmed in the making of this story, not like exceedingly short but you know, now that you've read the tags; let me tempt you into reading the rest..., oh right let me tag this as feels too, or more accurately, or so i hope, reasonable, still better than the 14th century, though both Crowley and Aziraphale probably had their respective prides dented back in Uruk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-25 13:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19746385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eag/pseuds/eag
Summary: After the (almost) end of the world, Crowley invites Aziraphale over to stay the night.  Faces are not so much chosen wisely as by happy accident, like almost everything else in their existence.There's also only one bed.A mix of book and miniseries continuities.





	1. Chapter 1

As Aziraphale studied the statue of two wrestling angels in the hallway, Crowley was immediately ashamed and embarrassed to have suggested staying over. His flat, which had always seemed at the very leading and exceedingly sharp edge of luxury and taste now seemed cold and empty, as if no better than a stage set in a luxury home design catalog, but done in bare concrete as if the designers could not be bothered painting the walls or hanging up some proper art.

Compared to the bookshop, it felt sterile, like an empty warehouse.

Crowley scowled to himself, and felt a tiny bit of gratitude for Past Crowley who had at least had the decency to close the concealed entry to the office so that the angel could not see his massive gilt and velvet chair that had always reminded him of the thrones of Heaven, but now felt like a mortifying reminder of the Fall.

And then he remembered the fridge.

“Care for...erm. Supper? Soup perhaps? A fruit tart?” Crowley suggested, thinking up food on the fly. Whatever he fancied or suggested usually was in the fridge, chilled to perfection even if it had never quite been plugged in since he had bought it. In fact, the freezer tended to output hot foods too; he had had quite a tasty pizza more than once from the freezer, as hot and crisp as if it had come directly from a blazing wood-fired oven.

“That sounds lovely.” 

That was the problem with bodies, Crowley thought as he walked to the kitchen, was that bodies had Needs and all of them were so mundane. Water, food...not that they really _needed_ them, but it helped make things feel better inside, as if wearing a nice coat but in your interior. Then again the corporeal life was so much more interesting than the sullen grinding misery of Hell where it was always 4:45 PM on a miserable Friday afternoon in early January, but the work day was just never going to end.

Crowley began pulling things at random from the gleaming stainless-steel fridge. A bottle of Champagne whose temperature was the exact temperature of a chilly cave in Reims, not now of course, but the temperature at the time that the Roman salt quarry that had preceded the later champagne caves had been dug. A plate of soft and hard cheeses of varying provenance, some of them imaginary. A salad that was mostly edible flowers and rare local fruits that were never exported and only in season briefly in the very far south of the Southern Hemisphere, which meant that it was not in season now, anywhere. And from the bottom freezer drawer, a big steaming earthenware pot of Brandy Broth as it had been made in the late 19th century by a loving Welsh coal mining family in a lush green mountain valley whose lives were being threatened by modernity and a growing mountain of mining slag. The last because Crowley liked soup. And of course, the promised fruit tart.

Aziraphale watched with a curious eye.

“How dreadfully useful. Where did you get this? How does it work? How did you make that happen? Are these all miracles?”

“I don't know,” Crowley confessed. “I think it's a Hotpoint.”

It never took him very long to eat, but it was a delight to linger and watch the angel eat, who exclaimed at every new flavor and even at the familiar ones, who savored every bite as if it were the last. 

Which it nearly was. And probably would be soon.

Crowley slumped back in his chair, and as his hand languidly reached for his espresso, it grew warm again and fresh. That too had been in the fridge, in the middle drawer in a carafe. As far as Crowley knew, coffee always came from a carafe, even if it was espresso. At least he took that black, like everything else.

The angel was relating a story, something about a dream or perhaps the story was about someone named Dream but it wasn't very clear and Crowley didn't mind the details, just letting the sound of Aziraphale's voice wash over him like the way a person listens to a favorite symphony, familiar and yet wandering, every note sending a pleasing thrill of pleasure through the heart.

“Well then. Thank you. That was lovely. We should have dinner in more often,” Aziraphale said, wiping his mouth fastidiously with a cloth napkin which he refolded and set down by his empty plate.

“Yes, of course. Not that there's more often left for us.” Crowley glared at the dishes, which did not dare stay dirty for long as they knew what happened to stragglers; immediately they were spotless.

“We might as well make the best of it while they're deciding what to do with us. Now what?”

It was summer, and night this high up on the Northern Hemisphere was a fleeting commodity. But time seemed to tick on slower than usual, and Crowley wondered if it had something to do with the young Antichrist. After all, warm summer evenings were the best for chasing after fireflies, for swimming in cool ponds, for hunting earthworms in the soft soil to go fishing the next day, and for lying in sweet meadows of flowers and grasses, your head pillowed in your arms, staring up at the sweep of stars in the vast expanse of the heavens and naming the constellations with your best friends by your side, making up names when you didn't remember what they were called.

“Cards. Books. Chess. CDs?” Crowley thought it over. “I have a television,” he admitted, saying it quietly as if hoping that the angel would not ask where it was. “What do you usually do in your shop?”

“Read. Listen to music. But you know, that's something to do by oneself; it's not the same when you're with a friend.”

Crowley felt his mouth twitch in three or four different directions at once. “I have a nice lounge with lots of plants where we could sit on the white leather...no wait. How about this, let me show you this thing that humans enjoy.”

“Are you tempting me?” Aziraphale grinned; it was the angel's oldest and most favorite joke and Crowley had been on the receiving end of it since at least the Roman era. No, it was Sumeria, and that was sometime after the Flood. Except back then it wasn't called Sumeria yet and they had both briefly struggled over a wild young man named Enkidu and nearly discorporated each other in the process.

“Sure. Why not.”

“This is...nice.” Aziraphale's hands spread out, palms stroking the crisp clean linens. The comforter was folded down; Crowley knew in theory it was supposed to go over the body, but liked folding it into an ersatz bolster to kick his feet up on.

“The humans call it 'Sleep'. But surely they do it now with more civility than they used to.” 

“Oh heavens, remember when it was no more than little green bowers made out of leaves? Or when the cow was in the same room, and they'd just shovel the dried manure right into the fire to keep warm? Absolutely appalling.”

“Don't remind me of the 14th century; just don't.” 

“It's so soft and cool to lie here.” Aziraphale folded his hands over his chest politely, staring at the blank concrete expanse of the ceiling. “And you just do this for a while?”

“Until I feel like getting up,” Crowley said, leaving his hands limp at his sides. He too stared at the ceiling but for different reasons than the angel, reasons that mostly involved jangled nerves and the proximity of the other. “Sometimes I close my eyes. Do some thinking. Shall I put on some music? I have some Soul Music that perhaps would be to your taste...”

“No, this is enough.” A breath and a pleased sigh; a wiggle that sent a tiny earthquake moving through the memory foam and spring and feather mattress. “Oh, that is nice. No wonder the humans like it.”

“Shifts all that gravity around the body. Redist... Redistri-boo. Gkh. You know what I mean.” Was that a lot of champagne with dinner? Crowley didn't know for certain but then the bottle never seemed to empty. 

“Yes. I always do.” 

The gentle press of another hand against his and this time Crowley felt his mouth moving in four or five directions at once. The angel had sharper senses than him when it came to peeping ethereals; if Aziraphale was doing this, it meant that no one was watching.

No one was watching.

Suddenly he gripped the angel's hand tight.

“Do you think this is a dream, angel?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Maybe the Apocalypse did happen? Because it seems that we've...died and gone to heaven?”

“Do you remember it? The Fall.” Crowley asked abruptly. It had been on his mind for quite some time but he had never dared asked the angel, though he came close once in Abydos, a long time ago.

“No, not really,” Aziraphale confessed. “It's strange isn't it? That you remember it so clearly and I don't. I'm not sure any of us do. By which I mean...”

“I know what you mean,” Crowley said, a little sharper than he meant it. “Sorry. Don't you think it's strange that you don't remember?”

“Sometimes I wonder if our memories of it were torn right out of us,” Aziraphale said. “It always seemed as if something was missing afterwards. One moment we're all together and the next...”

“Why do you think we all have a counterpart?” Crowley interrupted. “Mirror images staffing Heaven and Hell.”

“It seems as though you've put some thought into this.”

“Yes. Bit more than six thousand years worth of thought, if you can imagine.” Crowley's hand twitched, and he felt the warm press of the angel's hand against his, giving him a squeeze.

He continued to stare at the ceiling; that was better than seeing the gleaming heavens implied in the angel's bright eyes.

“I think that we were all one once,” Crowley said. “And the rebellious parts were split off and thrown away like cutting the bad part off of a pear.”

“I don't think I've ever had a bad pear.”

“Maybe pears are always good for you,” Crowley said, “Because they couldn't bear to to be otherwise.”

“Oh.” The angel was silent for a long moment; he had never considered that possibility.

“That. Was supposed to be funny. Or not. I don't know. Look. All that to say...maybe that's part of the design flaw and why we're here right now. Always seeking to return to that other half, as they say. Makes sense why we can't seem to stop running into each other. Canceling each other out. Et cetera.” 

“You mean, like the Greeks?”

“Shut up,” Crowley said crossly.

“I think maybe you're right.” Aziraphale's voice seemed fractionally closer than it was before. Crowley finally glanced over and realized that the angel must have been looking at him the entire time.

“Y-yeah?”

“Maybe that's why I don't remember. I just...remember the announcement afterwards and feeling kind of...oddly still. Like. Like something was gone, but it was impossible that something was gone because how could it have ever? We have always been and we always will.”

“The Will of God,” Crowley said, and an old sadness fell over him, an old longing. And he sighed but when he did, it seemed as if something inside of him loosened.

A feeling crept over him, starting from the tips of his fingers, and for a moment he did not know what it was; he had never felt anything like this before. It was a closeness he had only fond and distant memories of, like the quiet and sweet intimacy that comes in the silent moments when two pairs of eyes meet in fondness, but it was something much more than that. Suddenly he was taken to the heights of the deepest understanding and knowledge and being, and he could feel his very soul embraced by that sensation. Denser than emotion, more profound than love, more intense than all the fires of Hell or all the glories of Heaven put together. It was like the first moment of oxygen after a long dive into the depths, a relief and closeness and togetherness that he had not felt in eons.

It flowed through him like a vast tide and he was caught up in the surge of feeling, a poor pitiful swimmer on the vast ocean, and for one brief moment it seemed that he could see it again, the tiny blue pearl of the earth as seen from the distant starry heavens, the sweet murmur of angelic voices all about him in celestial harmony, until suddenly when he opened his eyes and came to again, he was looking at himself.

“Oh my,” Aziraphale – no, Crowley said. 

“I think that was...”

“A union of souls.” Aziraphale blushed, and Crowley felt weirdly hot seeing his own face look like that.

“You feel...” Crowley felt himself in Aziraphale's form, in the pleasing intimacy of all its curves and bumps and edges. It was like being in the direct warmth of sunlight streaming through dappled summer leaves, on a day so perfectly warm that it seemed that the air itself was wrapped in a toasty and comforting blanket around his whole body. It was the warmth of baking, of hugs, of sunny meadows, and plush toys, things that he had only seen depicted by humans on the television and had never really experienced himself, not since...

“And you...” Aziraphale sighed, and it was the same sound the angel made when he had something breathtakingly delicious.

“Brisk? Chilly? Cold?”

“No. Not at all. Just...very much like you.” Aziraphale smiled from Crowley's body. He knew all the angel's expressions and it was not that indulgent smile that he liked to press onto humans as if it would get the angel his way (though it often did), but a rare and genuine private smile, the kind that Aziraphale only made with his eyes and not quite his mouth as if realizing some particularly warm and peculiar emotion.

Something was wrong with this body's eyes; for a moment everything blurred but blinking more seemed to help refocus the lenses of the eyes. Crowley reached up as if to heaven, but it was to explore one hand with the other, feeling each joint of the fingers, the creased flesh of the knuckles, the cool golden crown of the ring, and to look at the fine pale hair that stood nearly invisible at the back of the hands.

And oh, the hands! He set them down, and they rested naturally on the soft expanse of a belly, the tips of the fingers of his left hand running past the golden watch fob that hung from the pale waistcoat.

“Oh, I wish you wouldn't do that,” Aziraphale exclaimed. “It's embarrassing to have such a round gut. Whereas you're all muscle under these clothes. That's rather amazing. I had suspected but had never quite known for sure.” Aziraphale patted the limbs of the borrowed body, surprised.

“You mean, like a snake. No, I rather like it this way. I mean you,” Crowley said. “Whoever told you otherwise is a fool that should be ignored. It's so very nice to be soft. Lovely warm feeling. Comfortable.” He said the word slowly, stretching out each syllable.

Aziraphale was silent for a long time. But then when he spoke, he sounded nervous. “Should we? We should, shouldn't we? Switch back that is. I mean, any moment now they could be looking in on us...”

“Naaaaah.” Crowley hugged himself, chafing his arms. It was a good sensation, warm and cozy, like a cup of hot coffee on a cold wet morning but without any of the bitterness. “Let's just stay like this. Spend the day in each other's shoes. I like how you feel. You feel good. So warm and cozy.”

“I think...” And Crowley felt himself tense, expecting the angel's outrage, expecting to be immediately evicted from the pleasing confines of this soft warm body. But then the angel surprised both of them. “I think I'd like that.” Aziraphale's voice seemed distant, and when Crowley looked over, his eyes were shut and he was well and truly asleep.

“Sleep well, my dear.” Even his voice sounded like Aziraphale's and that made Crowley smile with a wistfulness that his usual face did not often show. Leaning over, he saw that Aziraphale had fallen asleep the way Crowley often liked to, head tilted to one side and a palm pressed against his cheek, fingers dug into his thick dark hair.

Carefully, Crowley reached up and ran his fingers through his – well, Aziraphale's hair. It was as fine and as soft as he had imagined, perhaps finer and softer, and lying back down, Crowley let the body do as it wanted to do to relax. And oddly he was not surprised when found himself with his palm pressed against his cheek, feeling springing blond curls beneath his fingertips.


	2. Bonus

“May I? Please? Would it be all right? If I tried, just this once.”

“Fine, angel.” Crowley turned on his side, propping himself up on his elbow to watch. “If that's what you want. Just think snakey thoughts and it'll happen. And when you've had enough, you think walking thoughts and everything changes back.”

“Snakey thoughts, snakey thoughts. All right.” Aziraphale pressed his finger to his lower lip – well, Crowley's lower lip, considering the problem. Though he loved all God's creatures and creations, Aziraphale had not thought to put much time into thinking about snakes. Mostly simple garden invertebrates, a few songbirds, ducks, and the occasional aadvark (because someone had put it into his head), and of course those seals that were so round as to be nearly spherical. “Okay. Wiggle wiggle snakey snake.”

“Wiggle wiggle snakey snake?” Crowley's head tilted.

The transformation was immediate, and before he could stop himself, Crowley reached out to touch the sleek, cool scales of his own head. It was a strangely enjoyable moment; he had never had the hands to do it as a serpent.

“Well, that worked out nicely, didn't it?”

_Yesssss._ The tongue flickered out, tasting the air. _It issss...pleaaaaassssing. Absolutely wiggly fun._ The expression and the tone of voice didn't change at all, but it surely was Aziraphale.

“You know, I think you're the first person I've ever heard calling it 'wiggly fun'. Most people have rather much ruder things to say,” Crowley said dryly. “No wonder you're my b-...you're here.”

_How do you blink? Nictitating membrane? Like an aardvark?_

Crowley scowled to himself, or as much as was possible in Aziraphale's body. How did he know so much about aardvarks?

“No eyelids. Don't need blinking. Don't need blinking much in general.”

_No wonder...you took...a human form._

“No wonder at all.” Crowley flopped back down on his back. “Come here, angel.” He patted the delightfully soft belly, feeling it jiggle beneath his palms.

The snake coiled up, head aloft, looking as alarmed as a creature with no inherent facial expressions could look.

“Come on, it's night and it's not that warm in here. You're not going to be able to move much at all soon.” 

_I don't...quite rightly...undersssshtand...feeling ssssluh. Ssssssluhghhh. Sssssluggish._ The words were coming slower and slower.

“Ecto-something. The one that means that your body heat is not your own. Thermic, that's it. Ectothermic. Or would you rather I miracle you up a big heated rock?” Crowley thought about it and changed tactics, watching the snake slowly lose the ability to keep its own head up. “Think about it; no one could fault you for heating yourself up with your own body, you do that all the time anyway.”

_I'm ssssure you're right...no one would fault me...after all it's my own body...and we've already taken all the blame anyway. Might as well be hanged for a sssssheep..._ The snake slithered over awkwardly as if it wasn't quite sure of all the muscles in its body. _Oh no...was that. A temptation?_

“We're way past that now, angel. It's just a practicality.” Crowley offered the heated length of his arm and when the snake's tongue brushed against his skin, it seemed that he could almost taste the molecules that constituted the angel's skin and scent. Without meaning to, he felt his tongue move, though his current tongue – Aziraphale's tongue – did not move in the same ways he was accustomed to.

The snake moved slowly, but faster once he felt the heat of Aziraphale's body. Once the entire heft and weight of the snake was upon him, Crowley put his arms around himself. Himself that was not him, his other self.

“I think I could stand to lose some weight,” Crowley groaned a bit but then the snake redistributed itself across his body, twining down around his legs and waist and it was much more bearable. 

_Oh don't ssssay that, Crowley, you're jusssst fine the way you are._

“Mgrph.” Crowley said.

_You, that is, me. My body. It feels so soft and warm. Perhaps you're right that having a bit of a tum is not a bad thing. It's ssstrange seeing my body from here. Everything looks different. Funny, never thought... But how did you manage being cold so long? If you had just asked I would have miracled you up a heated rock. Or..._

“Or?”

“Taken you up myself,” Aziraphale said, coming to himself, finding himself gripping his own body around the waist, cheek pressed to his own chest just above the waistcoat. Surprised and embarrassed to be caught out, he quickly rolled off of Crowley, retreating to the other side of the bed. “Sorry. I must have thought too many walky thoughts.”

“Fine. It's fine. Easier to talk like this. Some of those vowels are hard to work; mouth's not the right shape for talking.”

“Oh, but it was ever so much fun,” Aziraphale said, running his hands through neatly coiffed dark hair and mussing it up before tucking his hands behind his head, lying back down. “Someday we'll have to try it again in a sunny park somewhere. On the grass. I want to climb a tree!” 

“And scare off the whole lot of mortals? They're not terribly fond of snakes you know. Especially big ones. Fine. Sounds lovely. Let's do it someday. If there is a someday.” Crowley stared thoughtfully at the ceiling, thinking of all those lost cloudy days when it would have been so lovely to have a warm angel to curl up with.

“There will always be a someday.” Aziraphale said with such unforced optimism that heartened, Crowley relaxed, settling back into his own thoughts as the angel in the demon's body chafed his cold hands, fondly remembering that time he was briefly a snake.


	3. Bonus to the Bonus Chapter

“You're doing an awful lot of wiggling for a snake! I know you're having fun but please try to remember that gravity is still a thing. A very powerful thing,” Crowley – no, Aziraphale – shouted up the tree at himself or rather Aziraphale in his body.

_I thought that's what you were sssssupposed to do! Oh, this is marveloussss fun! Wiggly fun!_ Aziraphale – no, a huge black snake with crimson countershading – hissed back at him.

For a nice and sunny Sunday afternoon, the park was oddly desolate and empty. Far away, the faint sound of sirens could be heard, but it seemed that those sirens could not quite find the right park, the one with the giant snake in the tree.

“No, not _wiggle_! Slither. Slither! Like this!” Crowley mimed, poorly, stuck with the limitations of Aziraphale's body. It was a motion that looked like an awkward and embarrassing dance move that only awkward and embarrassing dads did. If it were the 1970s he could have invented something that was almost like the The Worm but far more pathetic. Fortunately (or unfortunately) that had already happened and besides, humans could not do The Worm quite as well as Crowley could (at least, Crowley in his actual body), who did it in more of a side to side fashion and with what seemed like a lot more joints or a lot less of them, depending on how you were counting. “Shift your body weight so it's not all condensed in one point! You're a snake, not a housecat!”

_Yessssss! I'm doing it! I'm climbing a treeeEEEEEEE-_

“EeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEE!”

“Oh you absolute...!” 

With a crash, the angel caught the demon and both went tumbling to the ground onto their tartan picnic rug. Fortunately for them, the sandwiches, biscuits, and the flask of tea made a miraculous escape but unfortunately the same could not be said for the stewed fruit[1], which went flying off into the bushes with an ungraceful and unceremonious splat.

“Ouch.” Aziraphale had reverted back into Crowley's form, and was picking himself off his half-squashed friend.

“What do you mean, ouch? I'm the one that caught you. I should be the one saying ouch.” Crowley muttered crossly. Remembering whose body he was in, he straightened Aziraphale's clothes out as he got back up onto his feet, knowing the angel liked to be fastidious.

“Let me try that again. I think I can do better this time.”

“Oh Lord,” Crowley muttered, with a heavenward glance as the demon wiggled his hips like so much eager puppy and turned back into a snake, going for another try up the tree. 

*****

Meanwhile, somewhere dark and unpleasant and at the same meanwhile, somewhere very bright and sleek, two ethereal and occult beings spoke at the same time:

“Tell me again how those idiots managed to stop Armageddon?”

*****

“Should we do something?”

“Turn that off. I don't want to see any more of it. Better leave them alone, this might be some diabolical infernal plan,” Gabriel said to Michael. “I saw what he could do. You did too.”

*****

“What should we do?”

“Turn that off. I don't want to zzee any more of it. Better leave them alone, thizz might be some divine heavenly plan,” Beelzebub said to Hastur. “I zzaw what he could do. You did too.”

*****

Meanwhile, back on Earth.

“No, no, absolutely not. You're not going up a third time. Crowley, no!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11Aziraphale had stewed fruit once at a fabulous picnic in 1880 and decided that all picnics needed stewed fruit. Crowley absolutely disagrees with this sentiment and is pretty sure he came up with stewed fruit sometime in the 14th century. [return to text]

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Kirkypet and Elinekeit for prereading help! I appreciated all the great comments, suggestions, and support from both of them. It was especially nice to be able to check details with Kirkypet, especially when it comes to English-English. Eline in particular was promoted from [shitposting editor](https://evilasiangenius.tumblr.com/post/185927189174/i-want-to-steal) to actual fic prereader. Listener. Whatever.
> 
> Besides the original work by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, some other works referenced include:  
>  _How Green Was My Valley_ , by Richard Llewellyn  
>  _Sandman_ , by Neil Gaiman  
>  _The Epic of Gilgamesh_  
>  _Symposium, by Plato_
> 
> 7/14/2019 Additional thanks to Kirkypet who helped inspire that last chapter, and more thanks to Elinekeit who is all about the wiggly fun. You know what you did, bro.


End file.
